To celebrate the 98th birth anniversary of the legendary Estonian chess grandmaster Paul Keres, the Estonian Chess Federation held a chess festival from January 3 to January 16. Paul Keres was elected the Estonian Sportsman of the Century.

The festival comprised two events: from January 3 to 6, two youth tournaments (for boys and girls) took place, and from January 10 to 16 the main event – International Paul Keres Memorial 2014 – was held.

The youth tournaments saw 88 participants from Estonia, Russia, Latvia and Sweden. The boys' tournament was won by Kirill Chukavin and the girls' tournament was won by Anna Sagadijeva.

International Paul Keres Memorial 2014 drew 67 chess players from 13 federations. Grandmaster Alexandre Danin emerged a clear winner with 7 points out of 9. IM Artem Smirnov won the second place and the bronze medal went to GM Alexander Yemelin. All three players were from Russia.

GM Alexandre Danin (this and all the following photos are by Marek Kolk)

The best representative of Estonia was FM Ottomar Ladva (5,5 points; 13. place) who was also the best ranked U18 player. After the seventh round, Ladva held the second place and had the IM norm within reach but unfortunately missed a win and eventually lost a study-like endgame against GM Evgeny Gleizerov in round 8, and in round 9 was defeated by GM Viorel Iordachescu.

FM Ottomar Ladva

The home audience could rejoice over Robert Dubrovin's IM norm, at least. Toms Kantans from Latvia also achieved the IM norm.

Robert Dubrovin

The best ranked woman was WIM Monika Tsiganova from Estonia with 5 points.